The Supreme Court on Monday issued an important order on its shadow docket in Mirabelli v. Bonta. The court granted an emergency appeal filed on behalf of Catholic parents by the Thomas More Society, blocking a state law that barred parental notification that their children had changed their gender identity.
I previously wrote about the case after heralding the decision of District Court Judge Roger Benitez, who wrote a powerful opinion in support of the rights of all parents. He wrote:
“The Attorney General on behalf of the State of California says Plaintiffs’ lawsuit is “properly understood as seeking a federal constitutional exemption from the California constitutional right to privacy, as applied to gender identity in the school context.” State Defs’ Oppo to Plaintiffs’ MSJ, Dkt 256, at 9. But the Attorney General gets it upside down. Plaintiffs do not ask the State to magnanimously permit a sort of federal constitutional exemption. What Plaintiffs seek is to force the State to respect their enduring federal constitutional rights as citizens of the United States.”
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed his injunction.
For years, some of us have been raising the attacks on parental rights. That is why this order is so notable.
I recently wrote about this fight in Michigan, where parents secured the right to sue to defend their rights against the Rockford Public School District. The District refused to inform them of gender identity changes in their children.
While it only restores the injunction during the pendency of the litigation below, it reflects a clear notion of the likelihood to prevail on the merits.
There remains ambiguity on where individual justices fall on the issues. The parents raised both free exercise and substantive due process challenges. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wanted to go further in ruling on the merits in favor of the parents.
In her opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett rules for the parents, not the teachers, in the case. In her concurrence with the Chief Justice and Justice Kavanaugh, she focuses most on explaining why a view in favor of substantive due process is consistent with the decision in Dobbs.
The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented. Justice Kagan decried the rejection of California’s priorities and objected to “throwing over its policies in a slapdash way.”
Justice Sotomayor was the only member of the Court who opposed all of the parents’ and teachers’ claims. Without writing a dissenting opinion, she would have denied their application in its entirety.
The decision puts even greater focus on another case.
Last year, I wrote about a startling decision in Foote v. Feliciano in which the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled against parents in a similar challenge. Massachusetts parents Marissa Silvestri and Stephen Foote demanded notice of any gender identity change of their child after learning that the 11-year-old child had self-declared as “genderqueer.”
The First Circuit dismissed the challenge, holding “as per our understanding of Supreme Court precedent, our pluralistic society assigns those curricular and administrative decisions to the expertise of school officials, charged with the responsibility of educating children.”
The petition for review to the Supreme Court is now pending. Foote could allow the Court to reaffirm the fundamental rights of parents and, most importantly, clearly establish the standard for review in future cases.
The Court previously stated in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) that “the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
It is time for the Court to back up that constitutional right with clear and robust protections.
Here is the opinion: Mirabelli v. Bonta
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the author of the New York Times bestselling “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Mirrabela v. Bonta- if I were a school teacher in California I’d have a private lawyer meeting if I thought teaching transgender issues were incorrectly part of instruction and secrecy. I’d have my objections put in writing and stay close to my attorney because all of this is in backfire mode as trans people are filing lawsuits. I’d send a copy to the superintendent and wait to be fired I suppose. Rock and a hard place…
Schools are in error when questionable harm is at issue imo.
^^^^ If I were a teacher I’d make it very clear that I have nothing to do with nor any knowledge of any child’s genitalia nor anything connected to that part of a child’s being. This is truly insane.
Last word on that…
^^^ Not the last word, this or that case is disturbing emotionally. The child tried to commit suicide even after the secrecy and changing at school? The child has attempted suicide several times? There’s something grievously wrong and it may be a co-diagnosis?
While the court upheld the parents right it was a shadow docket and not heard on merits. Shadow decisions are emergency orders if a party may suffer irreparable harm if delayed. Kagan wanted to put it through and hear the merits.
Teachers aren’t equipped for such illnesses involving life and death. It’s very disturbing thinking a child could commit suicide. Personally I wish I didn’t know about it because it’s anxiety ridden information.
The forsaken. 988 is the suicide hotline…my god..
The left wishes to sexualize everything to destroy the fabric holding the nation together.
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Supreme Court Rejects Racist DNC Attempt To Eliminate Sole GOP-Held Congressional District In New York City For 2026 Elections
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/supreme-court-upholds-sole-gop-held-congressional-district-in-new-york-city-for-2026-elections-5993194
The state-level trial court ruled that the state could not proceed with any elections under the congressional map until the district “added Black and Latino voters from elsewhere” to the point that black and Latino voters “are able [to] CONTROL contested primary elections, and their candidates of choice WIN a majority of all elections” in the district, according to the application.
Justice Samuel Alito filed an opinion concurring in the Supreme Court’s new order, saying the state court ruling “blatantly discriminates on the basis of race.”
The lower court had ordered the New York Independent Redistricting Commission to draw a new 11th congressional district “for the express purpose of ensuring that ‘minority voters’ are able to elect the candidate of their choice.”
Alito said that ruling was “unadorned racial discrimination.
Today’s racist Democrats take a hit.
Jasmine Crockett says Republican cheating caused her to lose Democrat primary. Also Crockett: questioning election results is a threat to our democracy and it’s impossible for any cheating to happen!
Crockett getting beat by a white homosexual Democrat and joining the unemployment line because of Democrat fraud in a county she currently represents, after calling the Save America Act “Jim Crow 2.0,” is the funniest possible outcome of actual American justice.
The core reason Randi Weingarten’s American Teachers’ Union members wanted this is because 10% of children in our unionized public schools are sexually abused by their teachers at least once during the time they’re in those unionized schools. They donate hundreds of millions of dollars to Democrats to buy their protection once they’re elected to office.
Forbidden Fruit and the Classroom: The Huge Teachers Union Sex-Abuse Scandal That Democrats Scandalously Suppress
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/07/10/forbidden_fruit_and_the_classroom_the_huge_american_sex-abuse_scandal_that_educators_scandalously_hush_up_1042969.html?mc_cid=0d79030f05&mc_eid=febb5a4d8f
The Sad Lesson of School Sex Abuse: It’s Pass the Trash, Not Catch the Trash
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/08/28/the_sad_lesson_of_school_sex-abuse_101_its_pass_the_trash_not_catch_the_trash_1053859.html?mc_cid=08b6b4d1e0&mc_eid=febb5a4d8f
What the U.S. Supreme Court should really be concerned about:
FBI Director Kash Patel (and most former FBI Directors) operate an unconstitutional “False Imprisonment” program of native born U.S. citizens on U.S. soil – without judicial warrants and without oversight by judges. Basically shanghaing American citizens for life without any notice and bypassing judges.
The Americans on the receiving-end of this highly disloyal practice are stripped of all constitutional rights – without being confronted by a judge, without judicial warrant and without oversight by judges.
Once under this “False Imprisonment” program these innocent American citizens are not allowed to ever attend a high school reunion or college reunion (for life). The federal government decides who they can socialize with, what type of occupation they are allowed to perform and if they are allowed to make a living wage.
Ironically, it seems like the most punished and abused Americans are the subordinate low rank security/intelligence officers – otherwise good, brave and selfless government servants forced to follow illegal orders from politicians like Kash Patel. It’s an extremely evil systematic problem only the courts can address and solve.
These subordinate low rank security/intel officials likely know their own children will be subject to the same treatment, since they are working on illegal cases. Their children will be forced into government service also.
The U.S. Supreme Court needs to create strong judicial oversight over the leadership of our security/intel agencies to end this evil “systematic” practice. Don’t punish the government servants following decades of illegal precedent, fix the system John Roberts!
Nonsense.^^^^ lots of words starting off on a wrong premise.
That’ll keep the MAGATS spinning in fury until a new blog post drops. Let’s get back into bed, my beloved Democrat Furry Tranny Lover.